windows screwed

Hi, yesterday I installed a second HDD, it was working fine until I tried to delete some files from it, at which point it froze and then shut my whole computer down, I was getting the start windows normally or safe mode blah blah none of them would work.

I decided I will just reinstall, so I put in the windows floppy error reading I/O insert another disc, so I put in windows cd which worked but when I got into setup and tried repair it would load until the shut down to go into windows and just restart back into setup.

I got pissed off after trying it a few times and deleted windows. Then I tried to reinstall but on format at 81 percent it froze, quick format worked but same as repair windows would restart to continue setup, then it would just loop back to the initial windows setup.

Then I went to try again and it would load into the setup but when I tried to do anything it would say hdd not found, after a couple of tries I figured out how to bypass that, start the cpu with the hdd unplugged and wait until it is reading the setup config then put it in, which worked although I don’t understand why, seems irregular, but same prob just keeps looping back.

I put the hdd in an old cpu I have and the windows setup went fine went to put my hdd back in my comp and it just sits on a blank screen with a little flashing hash mark in the top left corner, so ya I have no idea what to do any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

hope that is a little easier to read, im not sure where the paragraph feature is.

I'm running winodws xp home version 2000.

I will go try to take out the setup cd but I dont think that will work becuase when windows is installing from the disc on startup it goes on two different screens and needs the disc in to resume setup after restart, but maybe im wrong.

Have you tried running without the second drive in, it seems your problems started when you put this in. Have you set the jumpers up correctly for the drives?
Run fdisk and check if the second drive is set as active.

So, let me see if I have this correct.
The AMD 1600 is the current machine that you are having trouble with.
The P3 is the old machine that the HDD's work fine in, correct ??

Now, putting any one of these HDD's in the P3 as a stand-alone master, the system reads them fine.
However, putting any one of these HDD's in the AMD 1600 as a stand-alone master, the AMD 1600 does not read either, correct ??

What type of mother board are you using with the AMD 1600 ?? (Or, I should ask in case I am misunderstanding, what type of mother board are you using in the machine that is not reading the HDD's ??)

From what you've described, If I am understanding it correctly, the AMD 1600 is the machine that was running both HDD's at the time of the crash.
You placed the HDD's in the P3, one at a time and they worked as they should. But the AMD 1600 will not read either HDD as a master.

Have you had a slave drive in this machine at any time before this ??

This is tough trying to diagnose this problem this way, but what I am visualizing here is a bad connection on the mother board.

If the mother board is a good quality board from a reputable supplier, then the odds get slim on this idea.
However, the bits can only go so far. If you were running windows, moving around in the windows Explorer, and the machine just died on you, ... and you've run an fdisk on the drives ...
That eliminates the HDD's as the problem.
The ribbons were working before the crash so it's somewhat safe to assume they are fine.
So, we have the connection of the ribbon to the mother board. The lines through the mother board to the CPU & Memory.
If you are getting an error that the system cannot find the HDD, then it is somewhat safe to assume the CPU is fine.

I use to use a piece of software called RamStressTest from http://www.uxd.com. It would basically verify the CPU, the Memory, & the Video card were in good working order. It's rather old now, it use to run on a 3.5 floppy, you didn't have to have an HDD installed on the machine to run it.
See if you can find a piece of diagnosing software that is free that will do basically the same thing. Sorry, I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment. All I'm trying to do here is eliminate the CPU and the Memory from the equation.
Assuming they are fine, the only thing you have left that is causing your problem then is the ribbon connection to the mother board and the mother board itself.
Swap the ribbons out and see if you still have the problem. If so, you may very well have a bad something on the board.